System Immunity

Democrats like to say they want money out of politics. I think that is a free speech issue and should be out of bounds, but there is another reason to support money in politics.

Consider that Trump spent about a billion dollars directly and Clinton spent about 1.4 billion (and these are from memory and since it is just for illustrative purposes I don't feel like spending 30 seconds to find out for sure).

And Russia spent a pittance--did it even reach a million dollars?--on online political advertisements (most apparently after the election!).

So the flood of money in our political process made Russian money about as effective as peeing in the ocean for raising sea levels.

Which means that our large spending on political campaigns (and more when you throw in other actors spending money and in-kind donations of labor and whatnot) is a kind of defense against foreign intervention in our elections. Who can afford to spend enough to be effective?

Which also means that campaign finance "reform" (which never works because people with lawyers always find a new way to spend money outside of the latest restrictions) designed to reduce money in our political campaigns just plays into Russian hands. That's the logic, I believe.